I don't really see it as that much neater, anyway. He routed the 12v line a little different and doesn't have a graphics card with two power plugs hanging out in the middle of the case, which makes a big difference in terms of appearance.

Because all the little crazy PC brainwashed idiots on every website in the world squeal it must be BLACK and any leds are preferred BLUE.

That's why, we have a populace of lemmings and parrots who think they are in with cool as their personal tastes are declared completely in line with the "popular cool" line of total frikkin BS for no reason pop culture stupidity.

Black makes it very difficult to see and assemble, and with all the assembling WHINES in every freaking direction, one would think the idiot masses could choose another color more in line iwth correcting their constant complaints.

But no, BLACK is "cool" no matter what, and BLUE must be the LED color.

There you have it, the RETARDS of the world on fire for their proclaimed "personal preference" which is nothing more than an absolutely thoughtless regurgitation of the pop culture.

That's why "amd fanboyism" has been and is the scourge it is as well, too.Reply

Why do you have to be such a damn supremacist? Just because some people may think blue LEDs on what is clearly an office-style case is ridiculous, that makes them a mindless sheep? Just because your opinions are different than what is popular, doesn't give you the right to feel superior. People have different opinions, deal with it.

Also, why would you use the Fan LEDs to light the case up while assembling rather than just working in a well lit area?Reply

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Really? So when Shakespeare wrote "Wherefore art thou Romeo?" Juliet was asking Why he was named Romeo and not where Romeo is? I understand this is a tech site but you may want to expand your knowledge some to understand the reference of the title.Reply

Actually, Juliet wasn't asking why he was named Romeo, but why he IS Romeo. Basically her question was about why Romeo had to be who he is, instead of somebody not in a family hers opposed. "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" was a lament about her heart's poor choices, and the family he unfortunately belonged to.

Type in wherefore in Google and you get:AdverbFor what reason: "she took an ill turn, but wherefore I cannot say".As a result of which: "truly he cared for me, wherefore I title him with all respect".Synonymswhy

The 'wherefore' here means why rather than where. What Juliet is asking, in allusion to the feud between her Capulet family and Romeo's Montague clan, is 'Romeo, why are you a Montague?'. Their love is impossible because of their family names and she asks him to change his allegiance, or else she will change hers.Reply

Would be a better title for this article because this is a case that time forgot. It is simply a retread of a late 1990s design.

It is very cheap, it does not do a bad job in will do fine for the vast majority of people.

But if you read Anandtech you are not the vast majority of people. As far as I am concerned the best M-atx case is the Siverstone 08, sure it is a lot more expensive and not perfect (a bit more width to allow sound proofing as well as cable management would help). The silverstone is what Anandtech readers should buy (I also have a soft spot for Fractal design mni arc).

My problem fwith case design is that there has been no real innovation for years - moving PSU from top to bottom does not count. Lian Li have experimented a bit as have Silverstone but the rest keep with the same designs.

How about a design with the following features:

1. Hinges not notched panels: Dustin is right about this2. Width so side panels have proper sound dampening but also room for cabling3. More experimenting with PSU placement, I like the idea of 90 degrees to current method, but need to be convinced.4. More thought about isolating PSU from case for vibration5. Oprical drives need noise dampening and vibration isolation as well.6. More use of grooves in back of motherboard panel to direct cabling and lots of points to attach cable ties to.7. Fewer hard drive cages8. Bring back the supports for the GPUReply

I find the stark contrast between the WHINING of the "luxury item" titan $999 brand spanking new awesome nVidia card, and the COMPLAINING about this mid range tiny case simply amazing.

In the first case the BRATS can't comprehend nor condone the price, nor do they, any of them, save a few, in 300 comments, desire it for gaming at the price.

In this case, it's not good enough - so some will go waste $100 or more (above or beyond this one's price) on some tiny case they can "feel good about". What a waste in comparison when an extra unneeded $100 is blown away on a feel good whim ( probably more than once so $200 or more ) - then the claimed extra $200 for the $999 Titan is the biggest sin in the world...

So you get the usb extension to the front, that's a bonus, too, like the toolless drive mounting.

Another luxury item others will call low end garbage then waste away their build dollars and scream about $5 $10 or $20 $50 or $200 on some (Titan or other) vid card they can't codnone or stomach the few bucks or few hundred extra they already WASTED.Reply

What sets it apart from most other M-ATX cases is the fact that it has 3 filtered 5.25" bays,which makes it perfect for equipping a Xigmatek 4-in-3 HDD cage. In total it can hold up to 7 3.5" HDDs making it ideal for a compact media server / storage machine.

It also has motherboard standoffs built-in so no need to fiddle around with additional spacers.It's "just" wide enough to fit a Hyper 212+ CPU cooler in the intended vertical position with hot air blowing out the rear 120mm fan, and "just" tall enough to allow removal of the PSU without first taking out the aforementioned Hyper 212+ cooler making swapping out PSUs a much less tedious affair.

It would be perfect if it had a modular / removable HDD cage and front panel USB 3.0.Reply

I would add a few mITX cases to your list as well. There are a few mITX cases that size wise are almost mATX but can only accommodate a mITX board. They are typically when you want a small form factor that can hold a lot of storage or bigger graphics cards.

The one I just bought is amazing with a few small flaws. It is 14.41" x 7.83" x 11.02" or 1243 cubic inches Vs your first mATX which is 10.35" x 8.35" x 15.47" 1337 cubic inches. Being almost mATX size means it can hold 7x 3.5" + 3x 2.5" drives Vs. the mATX's 2x 3.5" and 2x 5.25" capacity.

It's nice to see inexpensive cases getting a little more attention. I personally wouldn't spend even $55 on a case when online vendors sell perfectly acceptable Micro-ATX cases for $10-15 less and include a no-name 300 watt power supply (my gaming desktop sits in such a $40 budget box and I'm endlessly amused at how horrified people seem to get, predicting doom, gloom, and fires for the stuff packed inside - of course, that's all simply silliness). Craigslist, area depending, makes it easy to get case and power supply freebies as well. Sure, I have the money laying around to blow $400 on the box I put my stuff inside, but what for? It's like a shoebox or a Capri Sun juice pouch because, as long as it holds the stuff inside, its doing its job.

At any rate, it's easy to conclude that price and the goo-gaws of the design have little to do with the effectiveness of the case at keeping things inside it cool. Cable management is an oft cited fussing point made in the name of better airflow and better thermals. The sad reality is that, after years of building rat nests of IDE cables and tangles un-modular power wires, thoughtless cable disasters have very marginal impact on cooling. Most of the appeal of higher cost containers is in the target marketing and the desires of buyers to chase style while making a PC fashion statement in their desktops.

I'm still endlessly confused about why a set of locking tabs on a side panel draw so much ire. Sure cases with pop-out sides and spring-loaded levered mechanisms are around, but once a PC is built, even frequent fiddling around inside boils down to a once in a while thing. The few seconds difference (if there is one at all) in taking off the side because of the mechanism design seems like such a minor quibble and hardly worth expressing hatred or any sort of strong emotion.

Well I'm guessing the convenience factors stand out way more to reviewers like Dustin, who is assembling one or two systems a week for testing. You're right that they don't matter to like almost all enthusiasts, though.Reply

Since we are presumably dealing with hardware enthusiasts "here", why would anyone need a new case, they should have half a dozen laying around from years of builds...

You'd be surprised how people are though... their personal feelings about the appearance of the hardware seems to be about 50% of their opinion of the computer, and if they think they have something "socially impressive" then their brain is already gone and any clear estimation of performance might as well be assigned to the trash bin.

Stupidity comes in "order of magnitudes", as the fools love to say. Reply

I can get behind a lot of your points especially for a basic computer. I would disagree on two points though. I have encountered so many cases that had such bad design with how the panels attach that I have thrown the case away. If I can't put the case back on within ~10minutes or without bleeding I start to get frustrated and I'll pay for something better. I'm not saying you have to pay more but it's hard to tell how a case panel will behave if it's bent slightly when moving it one day even from reviews.

The second point is that there are important features of a case outside of cost that do matter based on your needs. I personally have 4 computers in my office so floor space is at a premium. Smaller cases shouldn't cost more but they do and it is worth the extra money to get a smaller case. I have a server in my closet with 6TB of RAID storage. I spent extra money getting a case with lots of capacity and good cable management. The box started out in life as a 2TB server a long time ago and I have steadily increased the capacity over the years. It actually has 10TB of drives in it right now because I haven't gone back in and removed the 4TB set when I moved to 6TB. While I agree that for a workstation I will build and forget it and rarely go back in it except to clean it this isn't all computers. So I'm in and out of this machine a good bit and I'm glad it is a nice roomy case with good drive bays.Reply

I hadn't even got to the Conclusion section when I opened up your reviews of the TJ08E / PS07 (basically the same case) for comparison. Pity the testbed has changed - I would have liked to have seen them in the charts for an "official" comparison. (For those who will revisit these reviews, keep in mind that the original reviews were run with a GTX580 rather than the current GTX560 when comparing thermals and acoustics to the current testbed results.)

A quick review of the case specs shows that the Silverstones are about double the weight and pretty much exactly an inch wider, which is where the space behind the mobo comes from in these 2 cases.

Newegg currently shows the TJ08 going for $110+14S&H, and the PS07 for $79+10S&H-10Rebate. Maybe a bit high, considering how long they've been on the market, but they are also both averaging 4+ eggs, which could justify a little price premium.

I can't help but wonder if we were assembling a system in this chassis at the same time.

When it launched the price was 49.99 shipped, but has gone up five bucks since then. Still a fair price far as I'm concerned. I was worried the case would be too cheap and flimsy, but it's good enough for the hardware I installed.

The Xigmatek Dark Knight fit, barely, but did fit. Now that I've spent some time playing with fan orientation I've decided to try a down-draft cooler instead, which I suspect will do well in this chassis especially considering the motherboard I used has no heatsinks around the CPU socket. The only problem I have with that is the high cost for a quality horizontal DD heatsink. Wish I could find a good one without fans because the best includes two VR fans :( (shame on you Noctua.....)

The biggest issue I had going in was the top-mounted PSU, but could not find a mATX mini tower with bottom mount PSU and 2x USB 3.0 front ports, in a budget price range. Even if money were no object the choices for mATX mini tower are very limited, with either a budget price or extremely high price tag and nothing in-between. I agree that top mount PSUs should have a vent on top chassis panel, but we did not get that with this case, and so those of you thinking to install 120 rads front and back will have the PSU exhausting all the system air. Using the side fans to exhaust a LCed system is not an option here either, if a rad is installed on the rear. Best you could do is exhaust with the lower side fan which makes no sense at all, when that fan will pull air from the rear vent adjacent to PCI slots.

All in all I'm happy with the case and would buy again in a heartbeat. Don't let the price fool you, this chassis is great for housing a small but powerful gaming system. There's enough space here for a GPU (or two), Sound card, Revo drive, etc....which is something no mITX system can do and the main reason why I've not been sold on the idea.Reply

I like the style of the case, very solemn with any stupid bling. I own a TJ08-E and this is pretty similar. A bit cheaper I think with some different water cooling options present. I think my TJ08-E will stay with me quite a long time as I don't expect to abandon mATX mainboards and my water cooling setup is enough to handle any CPU and single GPU with nice overclocks nearly silently. :) Reply

I believe the Line-M case was birthed in the same factory in China that pooped out the Cooler Master Elite 341. The design language is the same and it even uses the same drive bay subchassis with the same toolless clips.Reply

Really, inevitable? I've never seen a single person with a card reader in their machine that wasn't there because it came with the pre-built machine. I've taken to asking people if they have ever used it and I haven't had anyone answer yes in at least 50 inquiries. According to NewEggs stats, USB card readers are way more popular and what we use at work in what I would call "industrial usage". The USB ones are also cheaper.

Finally, what I hear you saying in all the quotes below is that this case, as well as a lot of other cases, would be much better without the 5.25" bays. Yet only two cases in the world give us this option.

** "Currently the biggest albatross hanging around the neck of case design is the 5.25" bay..."

** "...but you'll have to tilt the board into the case if you're using a full-sized Micro-ATX board, as the drive cage overhangs the tray..."

** "...optical drive and the storage drives, as they're most liable to get buried under cables."

** "..but I must stress that you really are limited to 160mm of PSU depth unless you eschew using the 5.25" bays entirely."

Just fyi, but wherefore means "why". The usage in the title seems to be using it as "where", as in "where are the micro-ATX cases at?" "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" is Juliet lamenting that the guy she likes is a member of a rival family. Why is he a Montegue, the hated rival of her father's family, rather than someone that she could hook up with easily.Reply

It's not even "black is cool" or "blue is best" or whatever. Black and blue are both relatively neutral colors. If they make a case lime green or fire engine red, there's a lot of people who won't buy it JUST because they don't like the color. Reply